Following in the footsteps of Horace's Ars Poetica, Boileau's Art of Poetry lays down, in four entertaining books dealing with all forms and genres of poetry, the codes and rules for good versification. This beautiful translation proved to have a lasting influence on the future shape of English literature. Among others, it was imitated by Pope in his Essay on Criticism, who also took Lutrin included in this volume as a model for his own masterpiece, The Rape of the Lock. Now reprinted for the first time in more than a century, with the original French text on facing pages, Sir William Soames's 1683 verse translation of Boileau's poetical masterpiece was revised by the great poet John Dryden.
